The Early American Ashery

What in the world is an Ashery and what was it used for?

The ashery in Historical Kirtland is the only known reconstructed ashery in existence in North America. In its era it was an important industry in most communities. At the Kirtland Historical Site we take people on tours of the ashery facility and explain its purpose, how it functioned and its value to the early saints in Kirtland.

Newel K. Whitney built an ashery along Stoney Brook in 1824. After becoming a member of the Church he consecrated his ashery and the proceeds from it to help build up the Church in Kirtland.  The income from the ashery provided funds for the Church to help sustain the Prophet and finance the publication of scriptures and construction of Church buildings. The ashery also provided work opportunities and income for Saints gathering to Kirtland.

An ashery is basically a chemical factory designed to produce alkali from wood ashes and process it into potash. Potash is a solid form of potassium hydroxide or, in common terms, lye – an alkali (the exact opposite of an acid). It’s extremely caustic and had to be handled with care. In the 19th century, potash was an important ingredient in manufacturing alum, saltpeter, soap, glass, tanned leather, gunpowder, paper, bleached cotton textiles and woolen goods. Today its principal use is as a fertilizer in neutralizing acidic soil.

The hardwood forests in the northeast were the best producers of potash because they contained a higher percentage of natural salts. Giant elms were best followed by oak, beech and ironwood. People could sell their fireplace ashes, and ashes from burning trees to clear the land, to the ashery for cash. A bushel of dry ash varied in price from 25 cents to 75 cents, depending on the quality. This became a “cash crop” for families to help make ends meet. It took 450 to 500 bushels of hardwood ash to make a ton of potash. The greatest potash productivity was in the early 1800’s.

The introduction of soda and the discovery of a natural deposit of potash in Germany in 1861, brought the ashery business to an abrupt end and eliminated the industry of manufacturing potash from hardwood ashes.

The ashery building is 60 feet long by 20 feet wide with a small office and laboratory added to the west end. Shuttered windows on both sides provide light and ventilation.

How the process worked (see pictures below): Hoppers, shaped like a funnel, were outfitted with a filter of straw and twigs at the bottom and then filled with ashes (pix #1). The hoppers were filled to the brim with water from the large water barrel above (pix #2) which filtered down through the ashes, extracting the alkali salts. The amber-colored fluid, commonly called lye water, was collected in buckets placed below the hoppers. It took two to three days to leach the lye from a hopper full of ashes. The potassium lye was tested for strength and quality in the laboratory (pix #3). If it was not strong enough the liquid would be poured back over the ashes a second or third time to leach out more lye. The lye water was then stored in barrels until the heating process began.

Large heavy kettles, 40 to 54 inches in diameter and 24 inches deep (pix#4), were used to boil water off the lye solution for 12 to 15 hours leaving a black residue at the bottom called “black salts”. The pot was cooled and the “black salts” were broken into chunks with an axe. These black chunks, containing carbon, were further refined in a reverberatory oven to burn off the carbon molecules, leaving a white solid called “pearl ash” (pix #5)

The domed reverberatory oven was heated for up to 2 1/2 days to get the temperature above 1000 degrees F. The potash was then transferred to the oven. They turned the potash during the baking process to make sure all sides were cooked evenly. When finished you had pearl ash, which was more sought after and more valuable.

Potash and pearl ash were packed into barrels (pix #6) bound for the east coast or England. A single barrel would bring between $100 and $200 on the market, which was a lot of money in the 1800’s. The money produced from the ashery, among other things, helped finance the building of the Kirtland temple.